Beware of scams that 'assist' in getting back money that has been cheated or suspended

Fraud victim gets scammed again

In a recommendation dated April 15, 2024, the Ministry of Public Security said: Recently, the situation of fraud and property appropriation crimes in cyberspace continues to be complicated. Many victims have lost money due to participating in commission-based tasks, financial investments, and emotional fraud...

Notably, taking advantage of this situation, the subjects approached people who were victims of fraud, to continue to commit fraud and appropriate their property for the second time.

The modus operandi of the subjects is to continue to create accounts, Fanpages, Websites on cyberspace impersonating units of the Ministry of Public Security, law firms, and law offices to advertise services such as: "receiving documents", "support to recover suspended money", "recovering fraudulent money", "recovering suspended money on e-commerce platforms", "recovering suspended money without deposit"... with the commitment to only collect money after people have recovered their fraudulent money.

The purpose of these subjects is to approach people who are victims of fraud, taking advantage of their regret for money and need to get back lost property to continue to commit fraud and appropriation of property for the second time. Accordingly, they often use images and information of police units, law firms, law offices, etc. and post many videos and articles with the following content: Warnings about methods and tricks of fraud and appropriation of property; cutting and pasting statements of some lawyers and police officers; posting images of law firms' activities and content authorized by the Ministry of Public Security and the Procuracy to "recover suspended capital", "reclaim scammed money" to create trust for people.

At the same time, they use the advertising feature so that these videos and articles often appear when people access social networks to attract followers and interactions. They even use many fake accounts to comment and interact with the articles; regularly participate in commenting on articles on reputable information pages with a large number of interested and interactive people (eg: Ministry of Public Security information page on Facebook platform) to increase trust, attract people's attention about getting their money back.

When people proactively contact, the subjects will ask people to provide personal information and information about the scam; install and download other applications, such as Zalo, Telegram... for convenient contact and ask people to transfer money to complete procedures and documents.

They will even use photo and text editing software to create fake documents to make people believe that their files have been received and processed. Then they will use many reasons, such as: needing more money for the file to be approved, the file lacks information, system errors to ask people to continue transferring money with larger amounts to commit property appropriation.

In Nghe An, in recent times, the fight against high-tech crimes has been comprehensively deployed by the Public Security sector in all aspects of work; focusing more on state management, contributing to preventing and eliminating the causes and conditions for crime.

In 2023, Nghe An Provincial Police cracked down on 86 cases and arrested nearly 400 violators on cyberspace. Among them, there were subjects using high technology to commit fraud with the trick of "helping victims of cyberspace fraud recover lost money...".

Typically, on September 7, 2023, Thanh Chuong District Police and the Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department of Nghe An Police co-chaired, broke up the case, and successfully arrested Phan Van Khai (born 2005), residing in Thanh Duc Commune, Thanh Chuong District, for fraud and property appropriation. The seized exhibits included: 1 mobile phone, 1 Ipad, 2 gold bars and many other related evidences.

Through the investigation, it was clarified that from July 2023, Phan Van Khai began posting articles on Facebook with content that could help victims of cyber fraud recover their lost money... Khai used photo editing software to create images that successfully recovered the money of many victims who had previously been defrauded and then sent them to the victims. After gaining trust, depending on the amount of money the victim had lost, Khai asked for a transfer of 2-10 million VND to be refunded the amount of money that had been defrauded. When the victim had just transferred the money, Khai cut off all contact with the victim.

At the police station, Khai admitted all his crimes. Accordingly, in August 2023 alone, Phan Van Khai committed fraud and appropriated property of 11 victims nationwide with the amount of 48 million VND.

Raise awareness

To prevent and stop fraudsters, the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention, Ministry of Public Security recommends that people, especially victims who have been scammed and had their property stolen in cyberspace:
- Absolutely do not listen to or contact websites, fanpages, social network accounts advertising services of "receiving documents", "supporting in recovering suspended money", "recovering fraudulent money"... on cyberspace.

- Do not transfer money to the above subjects for guidance and to complete the application.The Ministry of Public Security emphasized: Currently, the Ministry of Public Security and related units do not coordinate or authorize any unit to guide or receive people's records about fraud and property appropriation cases via social networks. People need to go directly to the police agencies to report or send petitions and letters by post about fraud cases of which they are victims to be received and resolved.

In Nghe An, in the face of the complicated situation of high-tech crimes in Nghe An province, with an increasing trend and increasingly sophisticated methods and tricks, on May 19, 2021, the People's Committee of Nghe An province also issued Directive No. 17/CT-UBND on strengthening solutions to prevent and combat high-tech crimes.

It requires directors of departments, heads of provincial-level departments, branches, and organizations, and Chairmen of People's Committees of districts, cities, and towns to direct the promotion of propaganda, dissemination of laws, and warnings about methods and tricks of high-tech criminals so that officials and people know, are vigilant, denounce criminals, and comply with legal regulations, preventing the use of cyberspace for criminal activities and violations of the law.

At the same time, proactively take measures to improve the security and safety of computer networks and data when connecting; accessing cyberspace. The Provincial People's Committee also requested Nghe An Provincial Police to strengthen the work of grasping the situation, proactively detecting, fighting to clarify, and strictly handling violations of the law in cyberspace; launching attacks to suppress crimes using high technology, especially criminal lines and gangs using high technology to defraud and appropriate property.

It is expected that in the last 6 months of 2024, according to the plan, the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial People's Council will also supervise the management and fight against activities related to "black credit" and crimes using high technology to defraud and appropriate property.

Nghe An Provincial Police also advised people to be vigilant against scams on the internet, including the "support" trick of getting back money that has been scammed or suspended.

Accordingly, people should absolutely not provide personal information to any organization or individual without knowing who they are and what they will use it for. Do not make requests to transfer money to strangers via social networks. When detecting cases with signs of crime, immediately contact the local police for guidance and handling.